Fiscal deficit at Rs 5.68 lk cr, breaches budget estimates

Fiscal deficit rose to Rs 5.68 lakh crore in April-January period, breaching the budget estimate by 107 per cent which may call for harder measures by the government to meet the target of 4.1 per cent of the GDP for full 2014-15 financial year.
As per the data released by Controller General of Accounts (CGA) today, fiscal deficit during April-January period was Rs 5.68 lakh crore or 107 per cent of the 2014-15 budget estimate of Rs 5.31 lakh crore by January-end.
The overshooting of fiscal deficit is mainly attributed to subdued revenue realisation.
The fiscal deficit, the difference between government expenditure and revenue, during April-January period of 2013-14 stood at 98.2 per cent.

In the Budget speech on Saturday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said government would achieve the 4.1 per cent fiscal deficit target in 2014-15.
The fiscal deficit target for current fiscal would be the lowest in seven years.

However, government has increased the 2015-16 target to 3.9 per cent of the GDP as against 3.6 per cent set earlier, as part of the fiscal consolidation roadmap.
Government in January raised around Rs 22,000 crore from offer-for-sale (OFS) by diluting 10 per cent stake in Coal India, bringing down its stake down to 79 per cent.
More disinvestment in blue chip PSUs are likely to take place this month.